14. Denmark — Another Round
2020, directed by Thomas Vinterberg
What is youth? A dream.
What is love? The content of the dream.
— Soren Kierkegaard
A quote from the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard, which begins Another Round, is vital to appreciating its life-affirming message. The youth in this film are high schoolers, introduced to us in a spirited team-drinking contest and ensuing drunken shenanigans around town afterwards. In contrast, we then meet four of their teachers, the film’s protagonists, who are languishing in their middle age — professionally, personally, and existentially. Adulthood and aging have done that to human beings since time immemorial.
The rather silly (not to mention stupid) experiment to combat their mid-life crises, is to get hammered, i.e., to maintain a consistent level of drunkenness throughout the regular day. The experiment’s thesis is based on a (surprisingly real) Norwegian psychiatrist’s claim that humans are born short of 0.05% blood alcohol content, and such day-drinking allows us to function at our best — physically, intellectually, and emotionally. Of course, funny drunken hijinks ensue. While the boost of alcohol does initially bring some positive results, perhaps also because of their increased bonding and camaraderie, they decide to try to increase their consumption to maximum limits, which results in hilarious scenes, but serious personal problems. Shocking… The first time watching this film, you almost would think the lesson is that moderate drinking is good, but excessive drinking is bad — a Buddhist Middle Way teaching. However, while alcohol is the plot device that propels the film, the point or ultimate message of the film is about embracing life and love, and rejecting despair.
Mads Mikkelsen’s performance as the lead character perfectly embodies existential angst and joylessness in the beginning of the film. Although he is married and has teenaged children, has a respectable career as a history teacher, and appears to be loved by family and friends, he is still lost and alone. When his wife leaves him later in the film, she says it’s not because of his drinking (half the country does that), but because he has not been “present” for a long time. He finds no joy in his daily life, making each day a banal struggle to endure. Likewise, with the three other men, each struggle in different ways. One is older and lives alone with only a dog as companion; another has several needy young children and a demanding wife. We do not know about these men’s pasts, but perhaps they all wanted more in life than to be high school teachers. In a scene when their students graduate, they wonder if they will be remembered, and one of the teachers says, “They will forget us as soon as they go out the door.” Although I certainly remember most of my high school teachers, I somewhat-shamefully confess that I have never gone back to visit or talk to any of them. Perhaps some relationships we have in life end up being more transactional than anticipated. What the men realize by the end of the film is that they share a deep friendship and brotherly love for each other. And they do make a difference in the lives of their students.
Last weekend from this writing, when Another Round won the Oscar for Best International Film, Thomas Vinterberg gave a moving acceptance speech dedicated to his young daughter, who died in a car crash during the film’s making. Another Round is dedicated to her, and clearly the writer-director projected his own despair, loss, and struggles in Mikkelsen’s character. Ultimately, Another Round embraces life. It expertly treads a fine line between tragedy and comedy, tears and laughter, and a funeral and a party, one literally right after the other. It tells us that these ranges of human emotion are not so far apart or necessarily in conflict. The film culminates with a fantastical musical number, as seen in the trailer and poster, featuring Mikkelsen, who is a trained dancer IRL, dancing to a pulsing, catchy Europop song among his students. They are jubilant in graduating; he is in finally wanting to live life again.
Vinterberg came up the ranks with Denmark’s most infamous director Lars von Trier. They co-founded the “Dogme 95” movement — a manifesto of filmmaking as art. Maybe too technically burdensome to be a practical philosophy, its myriad rules have largely been abandoned even by its founders. Whereas von Trier’s films, e.g. Dancer in the Dark, Melancholia, Antichrist, fully and enthusiastically choose the darkness, Another Round engages both the light and dark ends of the human spectrum, and ultimately has an optimistic message.
I watched Another Round on Hulu.
This is #14 in my World Tour of Cinema project. Read my introductory post here.
